Albertus Minimus

'We're not heroes...'

'We're from Finchley.'

I think you have to be from London to know just how funny that line is. But the 'Daily Mail's review of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' suggests that the film might be as good as I hoped it would be. I still remain amazed by the workings of Providence: two Oxford professors in unfashionable disciplines, of profound Christian faith, and who have been dead for many years are providing the monetary salvation of Hollywood. Surely God has a sense of humour.

Loosening the bonds of sin

Since I returned to the Church I have, after an initial struggle, also resumed the practice of going to Confession. But I'm curious to know if I'm alone in my experience in the confessional. At the point when the priest pronounces absolution, I often have a definite feeling that constricting bands around my chest, of which I had previously been unaware, have been loosened. Am I alone in this?

The passion of the egg collector

Egg collecting is a passion. Not one that I share, but a passion nonetheless, and one that can grow easily into an obsession. For the true collector, the desirability of an object increases in proportion to its rarity.

Thus, imagine a collector who happens upon a clutch of eggs of the last remaining pair of dodos in the world, who have somehow managed to escape the ravages of rats and cats and hungry sailors, maybe on some small rocky outcrop off any nautical charts. Imagine the ecstasy of such a discovery: not the excitement of finding a species on the brink of extinction, no. That is not what would ignite his passion. Rather the prospect that by taking these eggs - and thus rendering the dodo finally and irreversibly extinct - he would have in his possession a clutch of eggs that would be forever unique. That is the ultimate desire of the obsessed collector.

What is wrong with that?

Think of a dog fox patrolling his territory in Central Queensland. Recently humans have been making determined efforts to kill him, but he has not been caught. Then one day he meets a young and naive representative of one of the reasons humans have been trying to exterminate him. Would our fox stay his jaws because there are only about 65 Northern Hairy-nosed Wombats left? He might be put off by size, or the powerful legs and strong claws, or even the nose, but the fox would not care if dinner was the last Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat. He is merely proving that, at the moment and under prevailing conditions, he is fitter than his marsupial competitors.

Let us look at the ethics of conservation. According to biological theory, species go extinct all the time. Estimates vary, but most authorities agree that far more species of animals and plants have vanished during the earth's long history than exist today. Nothing in biology suggests that this is unusual, but rather the workings of natural selection. After all, the great filter of evolutionary theory is survival, which is measured by offspring. Those species that cannot adapt to a changing environment produce fewer offspring until, finally, they are no more, and others occupy their ecological niche more efficiently.

Nor is there anything in evolutionary theory to suggest that we are any different from other species. Note that it is not humans who are driving the Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat to extinction, but other animals. So there is nothing in the theory to justify saying that we stand outside normal evolutionary pressures as a species apart and above from all others.

In fact, human beings are agents of evolution and currently quite effective agents. We could even call ourselves the Emperors of Evolution.

However maybe we are driving the evolutionary engine too fast? Think of all those species that we have driven over or to the brink of extinction in the last hundred years.

But the history of life on earth is a history of catastrophe. 65 million years ago some 70% of all the species on earth were wiped out. We, as a natural disaster, don’t even come close. In the history of extinction Homo sapiens is merely a minor accident.

There is, however, our own self interest. We need a functioning ark to carry us through space and they don’t seem to come any smaller than planet sized. But if we look to science for a reason to protect that last clutch of dodo eggs from the would be collector we are going to be disappointed. For, according to science, everything dies in the end: species, families (personal and biological), stars, galaxies, everything. Set against this eventual passage into the darkness of unknowing the real and present ecstasy of the egg collector when presented with those unique, irreplaceable eggs. There is no rational reason there for him to stay his passion.

Thus there is in the biological logic of evolutionary theory no compelling reason to actually conserve anything. For this we have to look elsewhere. To the immortal hand or eye that framed the symmetry of egg and bird, tree and plant. 'For everything that lives is holy' said William Blake, and in this he is certainly right, for all was created by God and thus bears His mark. The only compelling logic to preserve our fellow creatures on this planet from the passion of the egg collector is the knowledge that to destroy by our own actions any species of plant or animal is to destroy the handiwork of its immortal Creator, who, having made, saw that 'it was very good'.

Break in transmission - normal service will soon resume

The end of a contract and a bout of illness in the family mean that my brain has pretty well stopped working, and my typing fingers are semi-disconnected from thought, so rather than ramble incoherently here is a short piece from today's Catholic Herald (which still hasn't sorted out its website so it's not available online). It's rather encouraging in many ways, particularly if one thinks back to my post on the death and rebirth of Christian art, and I can vouch for the deep and abiding place an appreciation of beauty has in Italian culture. So, over to you, Charles Whittaker:

' I popped into the diocesan bookshop last week to pick up copies of the new 'Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church' for the confirmation class. It really is a very handome little book. The Italian edition looks like it might be a small address book or th e recently discovered reminiscences of someone who liked to press flowers. It would not be out of place in the abbey bookshop next to the pot pourri. 'A Mister God, THis is Anna', however, it is not. I was immediately struck by the gorgeous pictures, which have art history type descriptions that complement the teaching.

I compare the 'Compendium' with my old daily missal, which has potato print pictures and lino cuttings, and I feel like a boy who has passed his eleven-plus and doesn't have to go to the the glass and concrete comprehensive but has been welcomed through the portals of the sandstone grammar school.

The kids love it too, thought it is difficult to stop them looking at thepictures in class: an icon of Christ perhaps or Gentile's "Adoration of the Magi". The reason Giulia, one of the children in the class, gave for wanting to learn her prayers in Latin was so that she could participate in the many papal Masses and audiences wehre Latin is used. The Salve Regina is her favourite, which she knows from Radio Maria, a station that her bed-ridden grandmother has on all day so that she can follow the Mass and say the rosary.

"How come it is so beautiful?" Tuglio asked when he saw the 'Compendium'.

The answer is clear: it has Pope Benedict's finger prints all over it. Whenever I pick it up I can't help thinking of those BBC announcers of old who came on after some temporary hiccup to reassure us, in their beautiful tones, that "normal service has been resumed".

And I hope that normal service for this blog will return tomorrow as well. Until then, good night.

A small sign of change in the House of Islam

Worshippers at a mosque in Dewsbury, near where one of the London tube bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, lived, got an unpleasant surprise when they picked up some religious videos from the back of the mosque. Rather than Qu'ranic recitations, the videos contained the usual images of death and destruction, overlain with Qu'ranic verses, designed to incite Muslims into the jihadi camp.

However, the good news is that worshippers at the mosque, instead of "keeping it to themselves" or "keeping it within the community", showed that they rejected its message, didn't want their young people polluted by it, felt themselves to be responsible members of the wider community, and handed the material into the police.

With thanks to the good offices of the Religious Policeman.

American and Australia: a comparison

I know, from the wonders of site meter, that many of the visitors to this site are from either North America or Australia, so I thought I would write about some of my impressions from visits to the two - I was about to write countries, but continents would be more accurate.

Of the two, I know America better, having travelled quite widely there, particularly on the West Coast. My first trip involved probably the most inaccurate holiday plan ever devised: we flew into Los Angeles with the intention of renting a car and driving around California for a month, with possibly a visit to the Grand Canyon thrown in. We ended up driving to Canada and back again, up the coast north and then back south on the eastern side of the Rockies, in what turned into an extended jaunt around America's national parks. I've been told subsequently that people normally book camp sites or lodges in places like Yellowstone and Yosemite at least six months in advance for an August trip, but in our naivete we simply turned up and always found a place to stay. Truly it was a blessed visit - and blessed further by the most extraordinary natural beauty I have ever seen: the Pacific Coast and the redwoods, the Columbia river valley, Yoho, Banff and Jasper national parks in Canada, Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon (which we walked to the bottom of and then staggered back up again in a day), Death Valley and finally Yosemite. There have been a number of subsequent trips to the South West (Rocky Mountain National Park, Zion, Mojave), the Mid West (Indiana) and the North East (Maine). So I can say I've seen a fair amount of that extraordinary land.

So far I've only managed to visit Australia once, but I did travel from Sydney up the west coast to Cairns and Townsville, and then across to Darwin, and south through the red centre via Alice Springs to Adelaide.

On visiting Australia I was particularly interested in what differences and similarities I would find between it and America. After all, both are relatively young nations, with strong ties to Britain, and English as the national language. But what struck me most was the different way in which each country made me feel, well, small.

You see, in America I always felt dwarfed by the size of the place: not for nothing was that film called 'The Big Country'. But in Australia there was a different sense, which for a while I could not place. Of course, it was huge too, but that was not the primary cause of my feeling of insignificance. And then I realised that in the Great Southern Land it was time that I felt crushing me. For Australia is a very old land geologically, and in the red heart one sees a landscape worn smooth over millions of years beneath the southern sun. Think of the smooth curves of Ayers Rock and the Olgas - it has taken aeons for them to be worn down like that. Whereas America's landscape feels much younger, as indeed I believe it is in geological terms.

Whether this feeds into the national character I really don't know, but I suspect there must be some influence. After all, one of the things that makes a nation is geography. Of course, these may be purely subjective impressions, but I would be interested to know if any natives of those countries feel the same way.

More tired reflections

Speaking of tiredness, as I was in my last, rather incoherent post, does anyone else find that it's at times of great weariness that one is most likely to fall prey to temptation? For myself, it does seem that the sorts of sin to which I am temperamentally most prone come to mind most when very tired. On the other hand, when vigorous and rested, such thoughts and desires rarely bother me. Yet more evidence for the unity of body and soul that make the human being - and a warning not to work too hard! ('It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world - but for overtime!')

Tiredness

Coming to the end of a contract and working a succession of long days with nights interrupted by restless children makes clear to me that we are one creature, a unity of body and soul, particular in time and space. St Thomas Aquinas has a phrase, mea anima non est mea (my soul is not me) that sums it up. Of course, on death our body is dissolved, but our unity will only be restored with the Resurrection, when bodies and souls wiped clean of the effects of original sin are reunited in the sight of God.

I'm going to sleep. Good night, good folk.

Be Pope for a day!

Mr David Hart emailed me the other day with some interesting suggestions as to Muslim practices that could be usefully adapted and adopted by the Church. He wrote:

'For example I believe that the Church might give significant thought to changing the Lenten fasting requirements to something like the Sawm during Ramadan. Also since few Christians actually tithe I'm wondering if the Zakat might be a more appropriate system. A more formalized set of prayers practiced at certain times of the day.... I also believe that it should be encouraged that a Christian visit both Rome (to see the Holy Father) AND Jerusalem (to walk the way of the Cross). I also say that I am much more impressed by the sight of people in prayer in a mosque than the standard pew arrangement in a traditional Church (I have heard that some Orthodox Church's actually do things similar to how people are arranged in a mosque but I have just heard that second-hand). Also the clothing of women's heads with either hats or scarves was quite common with Catholic women in the past...'

Now, of course, we are only indulging in some speculation here. However, I for one was always impressed with the general level of piety in the Muslim world (and the same applies to India and Sri Lanka, majority Hindu and Buddhist respectively). So, if you were Pope for a day, would you introduce any of these practices, or do you have any ideas of your own?

Something for recovering couch potatoes

Like me.